


Pizza for Valentine's Day

by remreader



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, But it's there, Drabble, Established Relationship, F/M, Ficlet, Fluff, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Married Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark Friendship, Pizza, Pre-Relationship, Tony Stark Can't Cook, Valentine's Day Fluff, also Tony is Jewish in this, it's only apparent in one line so I didn't think I should use the Jewish Tony Stark tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22657114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remreader/pseuds/remreader
Summary: Five times Tony and Pepper had pizza for Valentine's Day + one time they didn't.A series of short ficlets and drabbles of Tony & Pepper celebrating Valentine's Day - together and apart - from several years before the events of Iron Man 1 through 2020.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 17
Kudos: 73
Collections: Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019, Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	1. Pizza after Work

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rebelmeg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelmeg/gifts), [Earthsbestdefender](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Earthsbestdefender/gifts), [xxx_cat_xxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxx_cat_xxx/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day!
> 
> This fic is a fill for Tony Stark Bingo (card 3081):  
> • square S4 - writing format: 5+1 (Chapter 1)  
> • square S1 - wish (Chapter 2)  
> • square K4 - Morgan Stark (Chapter 6)  
> and Ladies of Marvel Bingo:  
> • square M4 - family dinner (Chapter 3)  
> • square M2 - cabin in the woods (Chapter 5)

Tony and Pepper's first Valentine's Day pizza date was an accident. Tony, attentive as always to the standard progression of time, didn't even know what day it was when he proposed the idea. He just noticed his assistant looking a bit glum, and, on a whim, asked if she wanted to stay over after work to get some pizza and hang out. It wouldn't be the first time. The two of them often ended up ordering takeout when working late at the mansion (which, more often than not, actually meant staying up talking way into the night, long after they'd given up doing anything Stark Industries-related). This _would_ be the first time it was deliberate though, without any pretext of productivity. And on Valentine's Day, a fact that Pepper was quick to point out.

"Hold on, it's Valentine's Day?" Tony asked, seemingly confused. "Isn't that in February?"

Pepper looked at her boss, wondering if he was joking. "Tony...it _is_ February."

"Really?" (He wasn't joking.)

"Has been for two weeks now," Pepper replied, now biting back a grin. "Did you seriously not know that?"

"Huh." Tony paused for a second, mulling this over. "Oh right - Groundhog Day! That happened already. Must be February."

"You noticed _Groundhog Day_ but not the entire rest of the month?"

"I love Groundhog Day! C'mon - fat little rodents predicting the weather?" He chuckled. "Priceless."

Pepper had to fight the urge to laugh. Tony really could be _very_ weird sometimes.

"So, um," Tony scratched the back of his head, "Valentine's Day, huh?"

"Yep."

"Well, offer still stands. You, me, pizza. I mean, why not? It's only a date. On the calendar! Not the other kind."

"Fruit?" Pepper teased.

Tony grinned. "That either."

And so it was decided. When they finished up with SI business for the night, Tony and Pepper relocated to the couch in Tony's lab and had JARVIS order them a pizza. It arrived promptly, Tony brought the box downstairs and opened it up, and before Pepper had a chance to react to the contents-

"JARVIS!"

The AI responded immediately. "Sir, you didn't specify-"

"See, there it is, the fact that you _know_ why I was calling you proves my point exactly."

"-and given the date it seemed a reasonable assumption..."

Pepper laughed and started in on a slice of sausage and onion and watched, amused, as Tony spent the next _ten minutes_ bickering animatedly with JARVIS' disembodied voice about the appropriateness of ordering a _heart-shaped_ pizza for their definitely not-a-date. Dinner and a show! She was glad she hadn't had plans for Valentine's Day.

* * *

By some strange coincidence, she didn't end up having any plans the next year either, and neither did Tony, and so the accident became a pattern, and by the year after that, a tradition.


	2. Angst Interlude I - Hawaiian Pizza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a 100 word drabble; I decided to keep the angst portions of this fic short & (bitter)sweet :)  
> It's set during Iron Man 1, with Tony still in captivity in Afghanistan.

Pepper ordered Hawaiian pizza. Pineapple on pizza...she'd never liked it before Tony, had thought it was weird. Well, she still thought it was weird but over the years, somehow, it had grown on her. (Pepper tried very hard not to see the metaphor in that.) 

Stupid, she thought as she asked JARVIS to place the order, wishful thinking. As if he would miraculously show up just for that, for his favorite pizza, for Valentine's Day, for  _ her. _

Pepper ate her pizza alone, drank a little bit too much out of Tony's liquor cabinet, and fell asleep on the couch.


	3. Pizza with Pepperony

Tony and Pepper finally removing the "un-" from their decade-long case of unresolved sexual tension did nothing to change the now firmly established tradition of the Valentine's Day pizza date. There were 364 other days of the year for fancy extravagant romantic dates - they had all the time in the world for that, Tony had pointed out, sounding practically giddy at the prospect - and this was their _thing_.

"I picked out a special one this time, Pep," Tony said excitedly when they were settled down on the couch, pizza delivered, "to celebrate."

"Oh really?"

"Mhmm, very special." Tony reached into the box, over-exaggeratedly hiding the contents from view. "I'm sure you've noticed what the tabloids, in their infinite creativity, have been calling us?" He turned back around and waved a slice of - she really should've expected this, knowing Tony - _pepperoni_ pizza at Pepper.

She took the slice from him, rolling her eyes. Pepperony. Tabloids and their ridiculous portmanteau couple names. Of course Tony would be all over theirs, it was exactly his brand of inanity.

"You know what else they could've called us?" He asked next, eyes still twinkling mischievously.

"No," Pepper said between bites, "but I'm sure you'll enlighten me."

" _Pork!_ " Tony barely got the word out before erupting into a fit of giggles, laughing at his own joke for a good thirty seconds and leaving Pepper to ponder once again the fact that her boyfriend was legitimately an off-the-charts genius and yet… The duality of man, she thought, amused.

"How about that, though?" Tony asked when he finally calmed down. He gave Pepper a sly look. "We're trayf!"

"Scandalous," she played along, grinning back.

"Well," Tony said, lowering his voice. He leaned in close to Pepper and reached out to tuck a loose lock of hair behind her ear, letting his hand linger against her cheek. "I do try."

Pepper tossed her half-eaten slice of pizza back into the box without looking and finished the move, closing the rest of the distance between her and Tony and pressing her lips against his. She kissed him and kissed him and kissed him and he kissed her back and that was pretty much the end of coherent conversation for the evening, pizza and everything else completely forgotten as they enjoyed the one big thing that _had_ changed since their last Valentine's Day together.


	4. Angst Interlude II - Cheese Pizza with Extra Olives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 100 word drabble chapter (and the last bit of angst, I promise)  
> It's set during Tony & Pepper's "break" from Civil War.

Tony ordered cheese pizza with olives - lots of olives. He picked one off a slice and nibbled it half-heartedly. Pepper loved olives.

God, this was depressing.

He went to his lab and grabbed a pair of glasses off the table. He turned them over and over again in his hands, contemplating the ethics of using them - and the technology they carried - to write himself a new story for the evening. A better story. One where he wasn't alone on Valentine's Day with olive pizza, no Pepper, and the all-too-strong temptation to drink and drink until the whole world blurred away.


	5. Pizza and the Future

February 14th, 2019 found Tony and Pepper leaning against a pile of drop cloths, sharing a pizza on the floor of their still very much under-construction lakehouse and celebrating their first Valentine's Day as a (finally) married couple. The house was hardly more than a skeleton, and drafty since there weren't exactly _walls_ yet, but that just meant that they had to snuggle up close to stay comfortable, Pepper sitting half in Tony's lap, which neither of them minded in the slightest.

Tony had brought along a handful of his hologram projector orbs - each one loaded with blueprints for the house - to scatter around where he and Pepper were sitting, with the result that the two of them were now enjoying their pizza surrounded by a glowing blue approximation of their future home. As they ate Tony treated Pepper to an enthusiastic virtual tour of the house he'd designed for her, using his slice of pizza as an impromptu pointer (and sneaking the occasional bite from it).

Pepper, meanwhile, had something important she needed to tell Tony and this was the perfect setting for it. She'd been waiting for her opening all night, but Tony, being, well, _Tony_ , had to spend ages explaining every facet of the kitchen and the living room and the irrigation system in the garden and the technical specs of the hybrid solar/arc reactor technology that would be powering the house (she ate her way through two slices of pizza on that section _alone_ ; he really was lucky she loved listening to him talk or this would've been interminable) and on and on before he ever got anywhere near the second floor. Finally, though, the presentation shifted upstairs and after a thorough detailing of the many _special_ features of their master bedroom Tony finally got to the part of the house Pepper had been waiting for - the guest bedrooms. 

...and that one," he pointed up at the first room down the hall from theirs, "is all set to be converted into a nursery, whenever we should happen to need it for that purpose..."

There it was. "Tony?" Pepper interjected. "About that…"

"Hmm?" Tony tilted his head to look at her, concern bordering on panic flitting across his face. "Look, I know things have been crazy lately, and if you want to wait or if, if you've changed your mind, that's ok. I understand, we can talk about it-"

"Shhh." Pepper put a finger across Tony's lips to quiet him before he started spiraling too far in completely the wrong direction. "That is _not_ what I was going to say." She grinned. "Just the opposite, in fact."

"Just- just the…" Tony stammered. "Ok, now - just to clarify here - when you say 'opposite' do you mean…?"

"I _mean_ that you should probably just make that room a nursery from the start..." she paused and took a deep breath before the rest of the sentence tumbled out in a nervous rush, "...since we'll be needing it in about eight months."

"Yeah?" Tony was starting to grin now, and the light of the holograms twinkled in his eyes as he looked at Pepper. 

She smiled softly back and took his hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Yeah."


	6. Pizza for Breakfast

The first Valentine's Day after Morgan Stark was born, Rhodey offered to babysit for the night so that Tony and Pepper could spend some time together uninterrupted by the various (and constant) needs of a five-month-old. It was an offer they eagerly accepted. As soon as the baby was safely delivered into the arms of her Uncle Rhodey, Tony ordered pizza for him and Pepper and the two of them snuggled up together on the living room couch, warm and cozy under a shared throw blanket, to wait for it.

Within five minutes they were fast asleep, completely dead to the world. It was the best - and longest - sleep either of them had had in months.

They didn't stir until late the next morning when Rhodey returned with Morgan who, upon spotting her sleeping parents, began shrieking excitedly and trying to wiggle her way out of the straps of her carrier to get to them. Pepper roused immediately at the sound and, after a moment of getting her bearings post eighteen-hour nap, pushed herself up off of Tony, greeted Rhodey warmly, and started extricating her daughter from the confines of the baby carrier.

Tony took slightly longer, blinking blearily at his best friend for a few seconds before finally commenting, "Well, that was fast."

"No, you're just getting boring in your old age, Tones," Rhodey teased. (He was, of course, very happy to see that Tony and Pepper had gotten some much needed rest, but that didn't mean he was going to _not_ make fun of Tony for having some prime alone time with Pepper and proceeding to sleep right through it.)

" _You're_ the old one." Tony grumbled, and Rhodey was genuinely surprised he didn't stick his tongue out at him too to accompany that middle school-level comeback. Moving on, Tony yawned, stretched, shook off the last vestiges of sleep and then looked around quizzically, realizing something. "Wait...we never got our pizza. What happened to the pizza?"

Rhodey laughed. "It's frozen to your front porch, want me to scrape it off for you?" He flopped down on the couch next to Tony. "I hope you tipped the delivery guy when you ordered."

"Of course I did," Tony scoffed. "I _was_ gonna give them more when they got here though...I wonder if the pizza place would tell me who it was? Too bad about the pizza though... I know - we can have _breakfast_ pizza! That's a thing, right?" Tony didn't wait for an answer before jumping to his feet. "Ok, that's settled, I'll go make us all some breakfast pizza - you too, Rhodey, breakfast pizza is a family affair."

"It is?" Rhodey was trying not to get whiplash from the speed of this conversation; fully awake now, Tony was already starting to go into hyperactive mode, his body clearly freaking out over the novel experience of getting a full night's sleep, (and then some). In a few minutes he'd probably be positively manic.

"Of course it is, honeybear."

"Tony," Pepper interjected gently, "do you actually know how to make breakfast pizza?"

"That is an excellent question, Pep. No. No, I do not. But! I have complete confidence in my ability to figure it out." Tony lingered just long enough to give Morgan a kiss on her forehead and Pepper one on her cheek and then bounded out of the room and headed towards the kitchen, his arrival at his destination heralded by the sound of several metal somethings clattering to the ground.

Pepper and Rhodey exchanged a look. "Rhodey, can you-" Before Pepper could finish her sentence Morgan started whimpering and tugging at her shirt and she quickly shifted her attention to her baby girl. "-aww, what's the matter, sweetheart, you want some breakfast too? -Rhodey, I've got to feed her, can you please go keep our favorite disaster from destroying my kitchen?"

A second crashing noise echoed out from the kitchen and Rhodey shook his head in exasperated amusement. "I can try," he laughed, "but you know it'll take a miracle."

Against all odds (and with only minimal damage to the kitchen), after a few hours Tony was able to whip up something that kind of, if you squinted, _mostly_ resembled a pizza, and a new morning-after-Valentine's-Day tradition was born.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was my first multi-chapter fic! (And my first time thinking up an idea for a 5+1 and then actually being able to come up with all 5+1 parts!)
> 
> Thanks for reading ♥


End file.
